January 5 Rant Update

The other day I posted a rant of sorts. It was about some events that happened earlier that day. That post is, in fact, the post immediately previous to this one. So you can go read that if you haven’t yet. Today the consequences of those events began to finally be revealed to me. So here is the update for this situation.

I was called in to talk to leadership. As usual, they kept the subject of the meeting a secret until the meeting itself. They could not just say, “Please come to the office so we can talk about X.” It was “Please come to the office because we have a couple of things to talk about.” As if I was going to think they had some other subject in mind.

Anyway, very earnestly and politely leadership said they had only my best interests at heart. Then I was asked to give my version of events. Which I did, as nicely as I could. After that, they explained very sincerely that for my own good I needed to train some other people to do my job, and they had arranged who that would be.

Which is to say, they had decided on a course of action before they had even talked to me about what happened.

And they proceeded to not really pay attention to anything I said that was not going along with what they wanted.

Which is not to say I opposed them. But I did try to explain myself in a manner I thought they would grasp. And they did not.

Anyway, I have taken very nearly all I am willing to take from these folks. But to be mean or angry would do me no good.

These people are not mean or angry. They just don’t care.

So I made a decision. I have not told leadership yet. Nor will I until this particular plan has come to fruition.

I will train the people that leadership wants me to train. And as soon as they are ready, I will quietly step away from the job.

No chances for false praise or anything like that. When the time comes, I will tell them, face to face, a reason or two for my departure, and that I will not be there any more. And I will then not go there again. And that will be that.

So what lesson can be gleaned from this situation? The one that comes to my mind is this: never be so intent on getting other people to listen to you that you fail to listen to them. I should have been listening to them more. I would then have known what to do sooner. And they have been so intent on getting me to listen to them that they have not paid attention to what I have tried to tell them.

Communication is important. Listening is part of good communication. Clearly I need to work on that more.

I would also like to say here that I truly dislike politics. I dislike the politics that rule so much of social interaction these days. I dislike the way people insist spending hundreds of words to verbally dance around what they should just have the courage to come out and say directly. But we are so intent on not hurting people’s feelings that we obfuscate the things we should simply just say in plain language. And the reason I dislike it so much is because it essentially requires me to dance as well. If I were to speak my thoughts clearly and directly, people would (and I know this because they nearly always have) take it as rude and insulting.

Anyway, this particular verbal dance with these people will end soon enough. Which is just as well, as I suppose I ought to be focusing on getting done certain things these people were never going to help me do.

So I come, as the tired old writing cliché says, to the end of end of the chapter. And when one comes to the end of the chapter, the only thing to do is move on to the next one.

I just thought this one would end very differently.

Oh well. C’est la vie.

Anyway, yes, I know, I did not post last week. It was not for lack of trying. I had a post written, but when I reread it, my argument was not stacked up as I desired it to be. So I set it aside and will attempt it again later this week.

Have a good evening, night, morning or day (as your particular place on the globe at the moment indicates to you). Be good. And if you cannot be good, be careful.

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This entry was posted on January 14, 2014 at 4:33 PM and is filed under Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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so true… had/have a similar situation recently, with the intention of not hurting my feelings some one said a lot and nothing… and hurts me much more. Anyway, the lesson I have learned some years ago is say what you mean and say it with simple short words. its not always easy… and yes, listening is another thing… especially to words between the lines…
Good luck and all the best!

Sorry to hear about the unfortunate event(s) at you work. She does not sound very organised or fully capable and this may be affecting your reputation?

I am very tired so forgive me if my next point is silly or naïve but you say in your post – ‘After that, they explained very sincerely that for my own good I needed to train some other people to do my job, and they had arranged who that would be’.

Did they tell you their reasons? They should. I wondered if this may be to help with your workload for situations such as you described in your previous post, but they should stress this? If you think it may be for other more sinister reasons, why wait, get outta there!!!

Yes, they did provide some rather flimsy reasoning for their decision. And no, it was not to actually help me. As best I can discern, they were more intent on helping themselves than me. That said, no, their reasons are not sinister. Just politically self-serving. Which is to say, not sinister but lazy.

Sir,
I cannot tell you how familiar this sounds to me. This happens more often than one would like to think. I’ve seen situations similar where I work where once they bring in other people to be trained, the writing in on the wall. And they use cutbacks to trim what they no longer want for whatever reason they find. Here is a url to something I wrote years ago which I only posted just a couple days ago…

Sir, You have enough examples of your writing on your blog. If you think they need dressed up do it. Then contact editors of publications, see if they are interested. At least that is what I would try. Or contact editors and find out if they pay freelance writers to write for them. Good Luck Sir.